Last fall, some members of the NFL community suggested that Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce was distracted by his much-publicized relationship with entertainment superstar Taylor Swift and his off-the-field business endeavors as he went six straight games without a touchdown reception.
During a recent chat with Sean Manning of GQ, Kelce indicated his focus wasn’t quite where it needed to be last summer.
“Win a Super Bowl is the only goal,” Kelce said. “It’s the only goal. It’s every goal. I think it might have slipped a little bit because I did have a little bit more focus in trying to set myself up. And opportunities came up where I was excited to venture into a new world of acting and being an entertainer. I don’t say this as ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ I’m just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven’t been to my standard. I just have such a motivation to show up this year for my guys.”
Specifically, Kelce accepted high-profile acting gigs and was named the host of Amazon’s “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” program. Additionally, he and his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, received a deal reportedly worth more than $100M from Amazon’s Wondery for the “New Heights” podcast they host.
Throughout the first month of the 2024 season, critics accused Travis Kelce of being “out of shape” because he spent much of the offseason “partying” and “jet-setting around with” the previously mentioned Swift. In the end, Kelce’s 823 receiving yards and three touchdown catches for the campaign were career lows outside of when he appeared in one game as a rookie in 2013.
Kelce dropped some weight during the offseason after Kansas City failed to become the first team in NFL history to three-peat as Super Bowl champions this past February. While the 35-year-old in the final season of his contract is a three-time Super Bowl champion who will one day become a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he seemingly is still looking for ways to make life easier for Patrick Mahomes during games.
“…I’m always on the quarterback’s timing,” Kelce told Manning. “I’m always making sure that I’m not screwing up anybody else’s route. But at the same time, I’m going to manipulate the defense…. I’m nonstop trying to get in those guys’ heads. One, keeping them in a reactionary position. But two, if I understand what this guy is being taught on this play in terms of leverage, in terms of when I threaten him, I can move him, now I can move guys to open up windows. Now I can attract attention to open up somebody else.”
Kelce and Mahomes will get an opportunity to begin their “revenge tour” when Kansas City opens the upcoming season with a game against the Los Angeles Chargers that will be held in Brazil on Friday, Sept. 5. It sounds like Mahomes will have a locked-in Kelce as a weapon from Week 1 up until the Chiefs play their final contest of the campaign.
